


Back to School, Ring the Bell

by Blue_fantasy



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Drunk Sansa Stark, F/M, Fluff, High School Crush, Minor Catelyn Tully Stark/Ned Stark, Minor Rickon Stark/Lyanna Mormont, Minor Robb Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Mutual Pining, POV Sansa Stark, Shirtless Theon Greyjoy, teacher happy hour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_fantasy/pseuds/Blue_fantasy
Summary: After graduating from King's Landing University, Sansa Stark is about to begin her first year as a social studies teacher back at her high school alma mater, Wintertown Community High School. She is excited and nervous, not only about the job but also about the fact that her high school crush, Theon Greyjoy, is a P.E. teacher and water polo coach at Wintertown High. To complicate matters, her youngest brother, Rickon, is still a student at the school and her best friend and college roommate, Margaery Tyrell, has unexpectedly come to town.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 17
Kudos: 37
Collections: Theonsa Challenge





	1. New Teacher Orientation

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the lyrics to "We're Gonna Be Friends" by The White Stripes
> 
> This is my entry for the Theonsa Challenge August 2020 Prompt: GET SCHOOLED  
> For more information on the creators' challenge, visit @theonsachallenge on Tumblr
> 
> Not beta'd  
> Mistakes are all mine

__

**Wintertown Community High School**

**Home of the Direwolves**

Welcome Back Week - Staff Schedule

Monday

8:00 am-3:00 pm - New Teacher Orientation in the Media Center

⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸

She shoved the tri-folded paper back into her new messenger bag after verifying the time and location of the first meeting of her first real job. She glanced at the clock on the dash.

7:40 am

Twenty minutes early. That was running late in her book. Quickly, she flipped the visor down and proceeded to check her make-up in the mirror, just enough make-up to hide her freckles, blemishes, and the circles under her eyes from lack of sleep due to nerves. Not too much to look like she had any make-up on. She smoothed her hair down and checked the tight bun twisted at the nape of her neck. The simple solitary diamond earrings her parents had gotten her for her college graduation sparkled back at her.

As she opened her car door, she felt the gentle warmth of the waning summer sun and the crispness of the morning air. She stood up and stepped back to view her reflection in the back rear door of her mom’s sedan, shimmying her pencil skirt down a bit and smoothing the fabric with her palms. She fluffed out the bottom of her cornflower blue chiffon blouse that was tucked neatly into the smokey gray twill skirt. Bending down, she quickly wiped a dusty smudge off her navy blue ballet flats. She had learned the hard way during student teaching that high heels did not mix well with navigating a classroom and school hallways for seven hours straight, especially those strange slick spots that occasionally appeared on the tile floor. She stood up straight and checked her reflection a second time.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

She reached back into the car and grabbed her messenger bag and stainless steel water bottle.

“Sansa Stark!” She heard a familiar voice shout across the parking lot as she lifted her head out of the car.

She shut her door and turned in astonishment to see her best friend running toward her, long wavy hair flowing in the breeze, the sun shimmering off the golden and caramel strands. Large colorfully-beaded hoop earrings bounced from her ears as her gigantic hand-painted hobo bag bounced off her hip.

“Margaery! What are you doing here?” She said to her friend.

“OMG,” Margaery shouted as she slammed into Sansa with a hug. “It all happened so fast but I’m officially the new art teacher at Wintertown High!”

“Are you serious?” Sansa said with a smile as she pushed her friend back and grasped Margaery’s shoulders. Having Margie right here with her to go through their first year of teaching together would make things so much easier and so much more fun. But she could also prove to be distracting, a thought that brought conflict into the back of Sansa’s mind.

“Yes! Why else would I be awake this early all the way up north in Wintertown?” Margie laughed as she gave her friend a dismissive wave.

“But when did this happen? I just talked to you a few days ago and you still hadn’t found a job and you definitely didn’t tell me you were interviewing for a job here let alone that you applied to one at the same school where I got a job.” Sansa questioned her friend as the began to walk across the massive parking lot to the main entrance of the school building.

“I know I should have told you I applied, but I was so afraid you'd talk me out of moving here, convince me the North wasn't my kind of climate. Anyway, I got the official job offer two days ago. Raced up here yesterday to get all the paperwork and fingerprints and all that other stuff done, and now I’m here,” she looked at Sansa with a big excited smile.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Sans, I know you. I was not about to throw off your groove the night before the start of your first job.” Margaery had stopped to turn and look at her best friend with a serious expression. “My dad booked me a room at that cute little boutique hotel on Main Street.” She turned and continued onward as they stepped up the curb and onto the sidewalk.

“On your left!” She heard a voice shout behind them, turning just in time to move out of the way of a bunch of gangly teenage boys running by in tanks and basketball shorts, sweaty hair plastered to their necks and faces.

“Hey, Stark!” Sansa heard a familiar voice of a man from the back of the passing line of runners, a fluttering feeling surging up inside her.

“What up, Coach?” One of the boys shouted back. Sansa snapped out of it at the sound and sight of her little brother slowing down his pace to look back.

“Not you, Rickon! I’m talking to your sister. Get back on pace. You have a whole other lap around campus after this,” the familiar man’s voice shouted back at Rickon.

“Oh! Hi, sis,” Rickon gave a goofy excited grin and waved at Sansa as he passed her and sped up to catch the rest of the water polo team.

“That’s Miss Stark to you, Baby Stark!” Margie shouted back at him.

“Shh, Margie, it’s okay. This is gonna be weird for him,” Sansa whispered.

“Sansa Stark. I heard you got a job back here,” the familiar voice continued as she turned to face him smiling at her the way he always did. The way that had her melting to the floor, speechless. It was him. Her high school crush. The best friend of her brother Robb. She knew she would see him at some point this week, just not this soon, not before she had even set foot inside the school.

“Theon Greyjoy.” She responded, her voice cracking as she tried not to let him notice her noticing the sweat glistening on his muscular arms.

“OMG! You’re Theon?!” Margie shouted. Sansa immediately felt the blood rush to her cheeks and ears. She wanted to die. She wanted to crawl behind one of those bushes along the wall of the building. She wanted to turn around, get back into her mom’s car, and drive away in embarrassment. 

“So, you talk to people I don’t know about me, huh Stark?” She watched as his smile got even wider and his eyes practically began to sparkle.

“Ummmm,” she froze for a moment, not able to think of what to say.

“I’m Margaery, Sansa’s best friend from college,” her friend said, outstretching her hand for a shake.

“Ahh, so you’re the roommate Robb told me about,” Theon took her hand as Sansa continued to stand speechless.

“Oh, really? So Robb talks about me to people I don’t know?” Margie said, giving Sansa a poke on her arm, shaking her out of her daze. Sansa laughed an awkward laugh. She slid her phone out of the pocket of her bag and glanced at the time.

7:45 am

She knew arriving twenty minutes early was essentially arriving late.

“It’s nice to see you, Theon. We need to get to our meeting. See you around,” she gave him a quick smile and grab Margaery’s arm to move her toward to doorway.

“So nice to finally meet you, _Theon_ ,” Margie said over her shoulder in a sing-song tone that brought another wave of mortification washing over Sansa. She did not need this on the first day of her first real job. This is exactly what she was afraid of teaching at the same school as her best friend.

“OMG, Sans. He is so hot,” her friend whispered in her ear. Sansa rolled her eyes as she pulled Margaery into the building. For a brief moment, she looked back to see Theon watch them enter the building and then take off running after his team.


	2. Surviving The First Week of Teaching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa makes it to the end of her first week of teaching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written for the Fictober 2020 Prompts:  
> -"No, come back!"  
> -"that's the easy part"  
> -"You did this?"
> 
> It is also an entry for the October 2020 Theonsa Challenge @theonsachallenge on Tumblr
> 
> Not beta'd  
> Mistakes are all mine

⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸

“No, come back!” She heard one of her students murmur from the back corner of the room by the window. She noticed the girl had her eyes fixed on something out the window and turned to see what had drawn her attention away from the lesson. 

Sansa could see a figure taking a jog out by the softball field, running in the opposite direction of the school building. As she narrowed her eyes, she realized it was Theon, wearing a pair of short shorts and striped tube socks almost to his knees like a P.E. teacher straight out of the 70s. But that wasn’t the shock of it all.

Theon was shirtless, tan from summer months of teaching swim lessons at the local outdoor pool. He was shirtless, his muscular form out for all the world to see. For the briefest moment, Sansa imagined running her hands up and across his chest and then down around his arms.

“Ms. Stark, do you want me to continue?” Asked one of the boys at the front of the room who had been debating the merits of making the Night’s Watch an all-volunteer branch of the military. She turned to her class to see almost two dozen pairs of eyes looking at her, waiting.

Sansa turned back toward the girl at the back of the room who now had her hand over her mouth, her wide eyes meeting her teacher who had heat rushing up through her cheeks.

A series of monotone beeps over the P.A. system shook them both from the moment and Sansa let out a sigh of relief.

“No, that is all, boys. Well done,” she responded as the students began to shove their books into their backpacks. “Tomorrow the next two groups will argue their topics. Have a good day,” she said as she raised her voice above the hum of teenagers moving along. She saw the girl from the corner glancing at her and then quickly to the floor as she walked out of the room, her cheeks flushed.

As the door clicked shut behind the last student, Sansa deflated into her desk chair and raised her hands to her own warm cheeks. After a moment, she swiveled to look out the window. Theon was nowhere to be seen but she couldn’t shake the image of his bare chest under her fingertips.

Ugh. Why did he have that effect on her still after all these years? And why in seven hells was he jogging shirtless on campus during the school day? And passed her classroom window no less.

She wheeled her chair up to her desk and plopped her forehead down onto her forearms resting on the surface. She was so exhausted from her first week of school, sleep began to wash over her as she kept her eyes buried shut in her arms. Just a little after-school nap and then she’d be a bit more fresh to drive home. 

Just as she felt herself drift off, she heard her phone ding with a notification. Sliding one arm off the desk and keeping her head in its resting place on the desk, she groped for the drawer where she kept her purse. She pulled the handle but it didn’t budge.

“Ugh,” she let out as she reached for the key on her lanyard around her neck and stretched it over to the keyhole, attempting to do all of this with her eyes still closed and her head still on the desk. She slid the drawer open and felt around for her phone deep at the bottom of her purse, finally pulling it up to the desk and holding it sideways in front of her face as she opened her eyes to read the text.

> _**Marge-in-Charge:** _
> 
> _Helping out some kiddos with their pinch pots and coil building aka making sure it doesn’t end up an ashtray or bong_
> 
> _Come visit me in the art studio_
> 
> _Have I got a story for you!_

Sansa rolled her eyes and smiled at her friend’s message.

⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸

She stood in front of the empty display case outside the art studio, a memory flashing in her mind of a grey porcelain vase with rust-colored weirwood leaves etched along the rim sitting in this very case. She had spent so many hours working meticulously on that piece. Her mother still had it proudly displayed on the mantle of her father’s study.

“That’s the easy part,” she heard Margie explain through the open door of the art studio. As Sansa entered the room, she inhaled the familiar scent of damp clay. Her flats slid across the thin layer of clay dust on the tile floor. In the center of the room, Margie stood at the end of a canvas-covered table where two students sat hunched over the beginnings of their first hand-building project, simple small pinch pots. Her friend looked up from her students and beamed a warm smile in her direction.

“Alright, guys,” she directed at the boys. “Wrap those up really good and air-tight in a plastic bag and set them on the shelf over there.” Margie pointed a clay-covered finger at a set of metal shelves along the wall covered in dozens of plastic shopping bag bundles. “Clean up after yourselves here and then its the weekend, dudes!”

Sansa couldn’t help but chuckle at her friend doing the same weekend dance she did in college, with her index fingers pointed to the ceiling. Some things never change.

“OMG, Ms. Stark, so good to see you!” Margie said as she crossed the expansive room toward where Sansa was standing next to a bank of massive stainless steel utility sinks. Her friend began to scrub the clay off her hands and arms under the running water. “You will not believe what happened during the last period.” The boys were now standing at another faucet washing their hands.

“Coach Greyjoy–,” one of the boys began to explain.

“Hush,” the art teacher told her student as she dried her hands on brown pieces of paper towel and tossed them in the large metal trash can next to the sink. “I get to tell my friend the story. You run off with your friends now.”

The boys laughed shyly, grabbed their bags, and headed out the door.

“Have a good weekend, Ms. Tyrell,” one of the boys shouted back into the room with a wave.

“Adios, amigos,” Margaery said reflexively with a return wave and then swiftly turned back to face Sansa.

“Your boyfriend wrecked my classroom flow during last period,” she said in an almost accusatory tone as if Sansa might somehow be partly to blame by association.

“He is not my boyfriend, Margie! And I know what you’re talking about. I saw him out my classroom window as well.”

“Oh. My. Gods. Girl! Half the class was plastered up against those windows.” She gestured toward the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, covered in evidence of the dramatic events of the afternoon. Dusty clay handprints were ghosted across them. “I mean, he is quite easy on the eyes, but maybe a bit obscene to be running shirtless around campus during school hours in front of horny teenagers?”

“Oh, Theon,” Sansa clamped her thumb and forefingers to her temples and hung her head. “Maybe I can have a chat with him the next time he’s over at the house with Robb.”

“Or you could talk with him about it during happy hour at the _Smoking Log_.”

“Ugh, I’m not going there. It’s where all the teachers hang out.”

“Um, Sans, I hate to break it to you but you are one of those teachers now.”

“He probably won’t even be there.”

“Of course he will,” Marge said matter-of-factly as she slung her hobo bag over her shoulder. “He’s the one that invited us. And you would know that if you ate lunch in the teacher’s lounge once in a while.”

“I just have so much work to do. I have to work through lunch in my classroom,” Sansa defended herself. “And I really should be going home to get this week’s assignments graded. I can’t afford to hang out at happy hour.”

They were weaving their way through the maze of hallways toward the parking lot as they chatted. When they got outside, Margie turned and grabbed Sansa’s shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes.

“My bestest friend in the whole wide world, one of the ways to make this job easier and more enjoyable is to get to know your co-workers. Be part of the team. Make friends. I know it is a little weird for you because a lot of these people were your teachers once, but the way to get over that is to get to know them as people. And I’m not from around here so I need you to show me around.”

Sansa thought good and hard about Margie’s words and she realized her friend was right. She was always right. She was so darn good at reading people, knowing what they needed.

“Okay. I’ll go to happy hour,” she said with a half-smile.

“Yes!” Margaery shouted as she jumped into the air. “I’ll drive. We can dish about your shirtless boyfriend on the way over to the alehouse.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Sansa said as she rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders, trudging behind her friend on the way through the parking lot.

“He will be,” Margie stated without turning back to look at her friend.

**⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸**

“You did this?” Sansa directed at the familiar face behind the bar as she looked in awe around the old alehouse. She had been in the _Smoking Log_ a few times as a kid with her father. She would sit at the bar with a giant glass of bright purple grape soda straight from the soda tap. She remembers that everything in the joint back then was sticky like grape soda had spilled and dried over every surface. The lighting was dark and not in a good ambiance way. The booths were tight and uncomfortable to squeeze into, leaving most people to sit or stand crowded in at the bar. But what she saw before her now looked like the popular gastropubs she and Margie would frequent in King’s Landing, but with a warmth that welcomed you to sit down and stay for a while. It felt right like it had always been there in Wintertown, and it had, just never looked this good.

Jory Cassel had purchased the old hole-in-the-wall pub after his father died a few years ago. His father had worked with her father as a private investigator at the Stark family law firm until his retirement. Jory had been a frequent babysitter in the Stark household. After he came home from college, he had floated between a variety of jobs around Wintertown until landing a bartending gig at the _Smoking Log_. When his father left him a sizeable inheritance, he decided to put his business degree to good use and bought the old pub from the owners who had been wanting to retire.

“Well, not all of it. Not by myself. I had a whole lotta help from Greyjoy,” Jory responded to Sansa’s question, gesturing his head toward the figure standing at the end of the bar. Theon looked like he was a standard fixture, always there, smiling and laughing with everyone, because somehow he seemed to know everyone in Wintertown. Sansa felt a little twinge of jealousy at the fact that a kid born on Pyke seemed more comfortable in her hometown than she did. And while Theon had spent a sizable portion of his formative years living in the North and had come back to live and teach here, she couldn’t help but wonder why she, a daughter from a long line of Northern governors, didn’t feel as connected.

“Well, I love it!” Margie exclaimed, beaming her flirtatious smile at Jory. That woman was going to break some hearts here in the North, too. Some things never change.

Sansa gave her friend a good-natured roll of the eyes and turned back to look in Theon’s direction. He was no longer standing at the end of the bar and she began to crane her neck to glance around the crowded bar for him.

“First round’s on me, Stark,” Sansa practically jumped out of her barstool at the sound of a familiar voice that had the power to make her melt. She turned to find Theon inches from her, his arm draped over the back of her barstool as he leaned forward with his other arm on the edge of the bar. “Jory, three shots of Yara’s rum.”

“Yara’s rum?” Sansa looked at Theon with raised eyebrows. “What is your extraordinary sister up to these days?” 

“She’s a rum runner,” he said flashing his goofy, crooked grin at her. He had no idea how weak in the knees that smile made her. Or maybe he did. “No, but really, she runs her own rum distillery on Harlaw. Our Uncle Rodrik backed her and helped her get it up and running after our dad cut us both out of his will.”

“That is amazing,” she smiled back and then frowned. “I mean, the part about Yara’s business. Not the part about your dad cutting you two out. I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s all good,” she shrugged as he picked up a shot from the bar. “I had already cut him out of my life a long time ago. Wasn’t expecting anything from him. I know Yara felt a bit different about it. It’s why she went back and stayed on the islands. Four years at Pyke U was about all I could handle.” He paused a moment, his eyes focused on the drink in his hand.

“Well, Stark, grab your shot. You, too, Margie,” he said as he nudged her friend in the arm, interrupting her storytelling that seemed to have Jory enraptured. Theon held up his shot and they followed suit. “To surviving your first week of teaching.”

⫷⫷⫷⫸⫸⫸

They had spent hours catching up on each other’s lives. Robb had shown up after his day at court and bought another round of shots to celebrate his little sister’s first week of “real work”, as he called it. Sansa couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled and laughed this much. Her life had been dark and murky during her college years due to a bad relationship. If it weren’t for Margie, she’d probably still be stuck with that monster. But sitting here, laughing and enjoying the moment with her best friend, her brother, and Theon made her heart feel light.

It wasn’t until they got out into the parking lot and the crisp northern air that she realized how drunk she was. But she knew the flirting between her brother and Margie had kicked up a notch when she saw them walking in front of her, Robb’s arm over her shoulder, Margaery’s arm across his lower back.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” she said to no one in particular.

“You don’t sound surprised,” her favorite voice in the world spoke so near to her ear. It was then that she realized she was leaning on Theon, holding onto his elbow for balance. His opposite hand resting on her own.

“Oops, I’m sorry,” she said as she let go of Theon’s arm and pulled at her shirt to straighten herself up, only to immediately grab back onto his arm with the next step.

“It’s all good, Stark,” he smiled, placing his hand back on hers.

“Sansa.”

“Pardon,” he looked at her quizzically.

“My name is Sansa. You can call me Sansa. There are like a bazillion other Starks in this town, but only one Sansa.”

“Alright, Sansa,” this time his smile was different. It was lopsided, crooked, but soft. Somehow it felt more genuine. More intimate. And Sansa was officially a puddle on the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> You kudos, subscriptions and bookmarks bring a smile to my face. You comments keep me motivated and writing.
> 
> Come find me on tumblr @sapphire-reverie


End file.
